This website uses cookies to deliver some of our products and services as well as for analytics and to provide you a more personalized experience. Click here to learn more. By continuing to use this site, you agree to our use of cookies. We’ve also updated our Privacy Notice. Click here to see what’s new.

About Optics & Photonics TopicsOSA Publishing developed the Optics and Photonics Topics to help organize its diverse content more accurately by topic area. This topic browser contains over 2400 terms and is organized in a three-level hierarchy. Read more.

Topics can be refined further in the search results. The Topic facet will reveal the high-level topics associated with the articles returned in the search results.

Abstract

We report on the development of an opto-fluidic waveguide coupling mechanism for planar solar concentration. This mechanism is self-adaptive and light-responsive to efficiently maintain waveguide coupling and concentration independent of incoming light’s direction. Vapor bubbles are generated inside a planar, liquid waveguide using infrared light on an infrared absorbing glass. Visible light focused onto the bubble is then reflected by total internal reflection (TIR) at the liquid-gas interface and coupled into the waveguide. Vapor bubbles inside the liquid are trapped by a thermal effect and are shown to self-track the location of the infrared focus. Experimentally we show an optical to optical waveguide coupling efficiency of 40% using laser light through a single commercial lens. Optical simulations indicate that coupling efficiency > 90% is possible with custom optics.

Figures (7)

Fig. 1 Principle of the opto-fluidic concentrator. (a) Light is focused to a ring inside the waveguide. (b) Once a bubble is generated, light is reflected from the bubble by TIR and coupled into the waveguide.